Two Can Play This Game
by NeoVenus22
Summary: PROO. Tyzonn can't sleep one night, and finds he's not the only one up. Complete.


Spoilers: 'Man of Mercury II'  
Disclaimer: No one mentioned belongs to me.

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Three o'clock in the morning, and Tyzonn couldn't sleep. He shoved his feet into some slippers and padded his way downstairs, only to find Mack in the living room playing Galaxy Grand Prix.

"Aren't you supposed to play with the sound on?" Tyzonn asked politely, abandoning his aimless quest in favor of perching on the arm of the couch. "The soundtrack is the best part."

"I don't really need my dad to come down and ream me out for not being in bed," Mack explained. His gaze hadn't wavered from the TV screen since Tyzonn had entered the room. "Spencer sleeps like the dead, but my dad's a little harder to slip past. Wanna play?" He was already exiting out of the game and going back to the menu to select multiplayer. Tyzonn failed to see that he had much of a choice, and settled himself fully on the couch, accepting the second controller from Mack.

"You know how to play?" Mack asked, as 'READY' appeared on the black screen in enormous white lettering.

A stoplight gave them a countdown to the race's start. "Ronny showed me," Tyzonn explained.

"Ah," said Mack vaguely. They were on the Andromeda Circuit level, which had three sharp turns, one lava patch, and one volcano jump, where a racer had to engage the power booster, otherwise they wouldn't make it. If done right, the player's vehicle cleared the burst of flame just in time. If done wrong, there were two options. One was incineration and complete elimination from the round, and the other was falling down the side of the volcano and taking the safe but long path around, which would put a player in last place with no hope of ever catching up.

Tyzonn had perfect timing with his booster and soared smoothly over the volcano, leaving a cloud of exhaust and ash in his wake. Mack hit the booster too late, skidded on the lip of the volcano, and tumbled end over end down the hill. "Too bad," said Tyzonn sympathetically.

"Yeah, Ronny definitely taught you how to play," muttered Mack.

"She's very good," Tyzonn agreed, bumping a computer racer out of the way on his path to the finish line.

As the game logged their scores and took them to the Galfrak 5 Speedway, Mack coughed out, "So, are you and Ronny, like... you know..."

Tyzonn wasn't entirely sure he did know, and it took him a moment to translate what Mack meant. He wanted to know if Tyzonn and Ronny were, as they put it on this planet, an 'item.' "Oh," he said, "uh, no. No."

"Okay," said Mack. The race started. This level had a rickety bridge over a pit of fire-breathing dragons, a spiral up a mountain where they had to dodge fire-breathing gremlins, and a long, dark tunnel where they had to watch out for fire-breathing gnomes. The points Tyzonn had accumulated from winning the first race gave him the option of upgrading his vehicle with either a super power booster or a water cannon. He opted for the water cannon.

"Why," he asked casually, spraying thick jets of water at an angry gremlin, "are you and Ronny..."

"No, no, definitely not," Mack said quickly.

"Okay," said Tyzonn.

"Crap," said Mack.

"What, what happened? Did I say something wrong?" Tyzonn definitely didn't get the whole Earth-dating thing. He had probably just inadvertently done something to sour his relationship with Mack, or Mack's relationship with Ronny, or Ronny's relationship with himself. Except he didn't know what or how.

"No, it's the stupid gremlins, they pop out of the walls. My tire's on fire."

"Oh," said Tyzonn, embarrassed. "Sorry."

"Why would you think you said something wrong?" asked Mack, whose red racer had dropped from second to third, and was now being trailed by a black cloud of smoke.

"I just thought maybe you were interested in Ronny, and I'd given you the wrong impression or something." Tyzonn drenched a horde of gremlins, accidentally souping the cave floor into a muddy pit in the process, and shot out of the tunnel into the sunlight, past the finish line.

"Right," said Mack. "Well, I mean, I'm not, if you are." He pulled into third place, his red car spinning on the lowest prize platform.

"If I'm what?" asked Tyzonn. His point accumulation now gave him the option for the hyper power booster or a camouflage paint job. He selected the paint job, out of respect for his abysmal lead over Mack.

"Interested. Interested in Ronny, I mean."

The next track was the Yelfur Zedah. Tyzonn knew three languages, and those weren't words in any of them. This level had ice demons and two loop-the-loops.

"I'm not. Well, I mean, maybe, I don't know, but..." Tyzonn did a jump over a pit of icy stalagmites. He skidded on the patchy black ice on the other side of the gulf. "What do you do on this planet, if you're interested in someone?"

"Uh, well, you get to know them, find things in common... you spend time with them..."

"Mmm," said Tyzonn noncommittally, firing lasers.

"Why do you ask? Are you interested in someone?" Mack said, very casually. Tyzonn chanced a sideways glance, but just as he'd been since Tyzonn had first come into the room, Mack was still studying the screen.

This was, in fact, the very thought that had been floating through Tyzonn's mind that night, keeping him awake.

An ice demon flung a frozen spear straight through Tyzonn's front tire and he spun out. He saw the blur of Mack's racer scooting past him on to victory. Tyzonn trundled his battered car back onto the road and towards the finish line. He crossed it with seconds to spare before level's end.

Instead of answering Mack's question, however, he asked one of his own. "Do you believe in fate?"

"I don't know about that. I mean, for me, being a Ranger just feels right. But maybe it was supposed to be my dad after all. Who knows?"

"If it hadn't've been you, though, I wouldn't be here."

"And we could never have this conversation," said Mack. He looked over at Tyzonn for the first time, eyes bright as they reflected the rapid images of the screen. "Did you let me win?"

"No." Mack's first-place victory in the Zedah didn't mean anything in the long-term anyway, given Tyzonn's massive lead in the points.

"That's what Ronny always says."

Mack un-paused the game, there was only one race left for this level of the Prix, the Milky Way Midway. Racers had to move from planet to planet via hidden jump points. Red ones were the easiest to locate. Blue ones had a built-in speed boost. The green ones allowed a player to skip over one planet, but were so elusive that the entire game could be wasted searching a planet to find one.

Tyzonn had played this game one night with Ronny. She had, as the others liked to put it, creamed him. But he'd enjoyed himself. He liked the way she became engrossed in the game, yelling at the gremlins, the dragons, and the other racers. Then she'd patiently shown Tyzonn how to play, because it was not as though he'd ever had video games before, or the time to play them. He knew it had been her way of welcoming him into the group, because almost all of the Rangers played it.

Tyzonn spotted Mack's racer and followed him weaving in and out of the red and gold clouds on Jupiter, hoping he'd be led to a blue or a green jump.

"You can't follow me," Mack said, but he was laughing.

"This is only my second time playing. You have an unfair advantage."

Mack took his eyes off the game long enough to goggle at Tyzonn. "This is only your second time?"

"Is that bad?"

"You're totally kicking my butt. Ronny definitely taught you."

Tyzonn shrugged, trying to hide his pleasure. Mack drove frantically, knowing where the exit was and knowing Tyzonn was following him. They fired lasers at each other and dodged in and out of horde of angry blue Jupitarians.

"You shouldn't be following me, man!" Mack said, veering a left so sharp it was almost a U-turn. "They only go after the guy in first."

"Then it's good I'm letting you win," Tyzonn retorted.

In spite of Mack's efforts to throw him off, Tyzonn had spotted the rising green smoke indicating the jump. He fired a few distracting lasers in Mack's direction and broke free.

"Hey!" said Mack, pushing down on the gas and ramming onto the back of Tyzonn's racer. The both of them were laughing and jostling each other on the couch as their tiny racers sped and bumped each other on the way to the level jump.

"Master Mack! Tyzonn."

They looked up sharply; Spencer was filling the doorframe, arms crossed over the front of his fuzzy blue bathrobe.

"Spence, sorry," said Mack, attempting to swallow his smile.

"I'll have you know that your father was up very late, working on upgrades for your Zords," Spencer said sternly. "I think he's due for some well-earned sleep, wouldn't you say?"

"Were we being too loud?" Tyzonn ventured.

Spencer's dark look was answer enough. "I would go to bed, if I were you."

Tyzonn nodded tightly.

"Hey, man, I'll clean up here," Mack said softly about the game. In their distraction, they'd forgotten to pause it, and were now in seventh and eighth place, of eight total racers.

"Thanks," said Tyzonn, rising to follow Spencer back upstairs.

"Oh, hey, Ty?" Mack called after him, and Tyzonn turned. Tyzonn liked that the team had a nickname for him. It made him feel like he belonged. Spencer hovered, looking tired and annoyed.

"About what we were talking about earlier? Um, just be yourself. And have fun. That's all that really matters."

"All right," said Tyzonn, something warm settling deep into his stomach. "Thank you."

And as he crawled into bed, he found, miraculously, that he fell right asleep.


End file.
